Juan Castillo's Fundamental Failure

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When Juan Castillo took over as defensive coordinator last January, his goal was to improve a wretched unit under Sean McDermott. His plan wasn't to install new blitzes or confuse the quarterback. It was simple:

“First of all, what we’re going to do is be fast and physical, and we’re going to be fundamentally sound. We have good players here. This is the NFL, you change, you upgrade, players get hurt, but that’s what we’re going to do.”

"Fundamentally sound"... right. That doesn't sound like the 2011 Eagles defense to me. What about to you?

Pro Football Focus shows that the Eagles have the sixth-highest number of missed tackles in the entire NFL. Last year, by the way, McDermott's defense averaged 5.9 missed tackles per game. This year, through eight games, Castillo's group has only gotten worse -- by an extra missed tackle per game.